Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Because with a head of hair like this guy has, there is no other option than to hit 207 mph on a frame that is about as close to a bicycle as you can get with the crank arms swapped out for a fricking rocket engine.

Back in my younger days, I hit 61-mph on my road bike while descending a steep ridge road on O'ahu. The pedals hit their resonance frequency and my feet were going numb from the vibration. Combine that with a sharp turn I took a little wide and I'm lucky to be alive. I try not to exceed 45 or so these days.

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Buy this 26-inch wheelset: limited edition purple Surly hubs of the single speed and disc variety. Sweet hubs are laced to Mavic disc specific rims. Includes bonus Kenda Small Block Eight tires and tubes and all four hub nuts. Yours for 200.

Friday, July 19, 2013

Minneapolis Bike Polo is hosting the North American Bike Polo Championships in August and this fundraiser will benefit that effort.

Info on the event can be found here: http://mplsbikepolo.com/league/nahbpc-fundraiser-party-and-raffle-0719/
If you would like to stop by and purchase a raffle ticket or bid on a silent auction item it would be much appreciated. We will have tons of amazing bicycle related items and art.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

TLDR: Witnesses to the hit-and-run were able to get a license plate number of the fleeing vehicle. ABDIRAHMAN ABDI ALI confesses to hitting a person while driving on Pleasant Avenue, stating he was fleeing from being shot at, later telling his mother that he thought he hit a bicyclist. The defendant is in custody.

Jessica's funeral is set for Thursday, July 11th at Zion Lutheran Church in Hoffman, Minnesota. Visitation is July 10th from 4-7pm.

Rest In Peace, Jessica. I did not know you, but from what I've heard from others, I'm sure I would have liked you. I hope we can all learn something from this tragic and untimely death.

Friday, May 24, 2013

So after riding with my Schmidt Nabendynamo for a few weeks last year with an excruciatingly difficult time pedaling, I wised up and spun the wheel by hand - holy smokes the hub was nearly frozen. What to do?

My options for a hub repair include shipping it back to Peter White or to Schmidt in Germany for repair, where the shipping charges alone are more than I wanted to accept. Or I could just repair the hub myself, seeing how the warranty period was expired anyway.

So I decided to make a tool, which with the help of a milling machine, a piece of scrap aluminum, and a handful of the correct diameter pins, didn't take more than about a half hour to manufacture. I had to cut a recess in the back of the tool to accept the skewer, which prevented the tool from slipping off during the removal, but the tool removed the hub armature just as expected.

Schmidt hub disassembly tool, one pin is removed to allow room for the electrical connector.

Schmidt hub disassembly tool, back view, showing the recess for the skewer.

My original thought was that I would have to replace the bearings, but disassembly quickly showed that moisture was the cause of the hub binding; the armature was contaminated with rust, and thick enough that there was a physical interference between that and the field magnets on the outer hub. Dang.

Schmidt hub armature core - rusty!

Schmidt Original Nabendynamo armature core. There was a bit of slippage and resulting damage to the hub until I locked the tool on to the hub with the skewer - no biggie.

I cleaned up the rust with a fine grit emery paper, lubed it up with a film of grease, put it all back together, and the wheel has been rolling for a year now with no issues.

Note that the new version of the Schmidt hub requires the spokes removed from the hub for disassembly, while the older version here does not require a new wheel build for repair.